PATRIARCH
KIRILL
BEING SAVED FOR "MILITARY" SERVICE
by
Andrei Melnikov
Nezavisimaia
Gazeta, 7 June 2020
The
primate of the
Russian Orthodox Church, for the first time in many years, did
not serve the
liturgy on Trinity Sunday in the Saint Sergius Holy Trinity
lavra. This is one
of the most important dates on the calendar of Orthodox
Christians and
therefore many believers were surprised that Patriarch Kirill
spent the feast
day in a church close to his residence in Peredelkino. Just
before Trinity,
many churches opened for parishioners after the long quarantine.
On the
official
website of the Moscow patriarchate it is said that "the decision
regarding
the worship service in the skete on this great twelfth feast was
made at the
insistence of doctors, in light of the dedication by His
Holiness of the chief
church of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation that is
scheduled for 22
June of this year." Of course, in the depths of the powerful
movement of
disagreement with the policies of the Moscow patriarchate, which
grew during
the pandemic, there immediately appeared discontent with the
caution of the
patriarch.
Religious
zealots
accuse the head of the RPTs of allegedly replacing Christian
values with the
"statist cult," since on Trinity he is afraid of appearing
before
believers although he honors with his presence the event in
which military
commanders and state officials are participating. For these
critics, of course,
the fact that the St. Sergius Holy Trinity lavra is closed, even
on its
patronal holiday, because of the large outbreak of the
coronavirus infection in
the cloister does not work as an argument. According to some
reports, the famed
monastery will open its gates for pilgrims no sooner than 15
June.
Meanwhile
the radical
conservatives in "the depths of church folk" have suffered a
loss.
Saturday night the schearchimandrite Peter died in his 94th
year. He was a
very contradictory personality. On one hand, he was a veteran of
the Great
Patriotic War. On the other hand he was a devotee simultaneously
of Nicholas II
and Stalin and a zealous fighter against the INN [Taxpayer
Identification
Number] and passports of the new style. The peak of the
"elder's: activity
came in the 1990s and 2000s, when he founded the community of
the Holy
Bogoliubovo convent in Vladimir oblast. It was with this
community that the
noisy scandals of 2009-2010 were connected, when the teachers of
the orphanage
in the convent were accused of cruel treatment of young
inhabitants. Under pressure
from rights advocates, Peter was retired in 2010, and last month
he even took
the great schema.
Whereas
a decade ago
the Moscow patriarchate tried by all means to shield followers
of
"elders" like Peter and to protect them from pressure from the
authorities,
recently the obscurantists have been annoying hierarchs and
administrators of
the RPTs. On Thursday it was learned that the Center for
Combating Extremism of
the M.V.D. directorate for Sverdlovsk oblast identified
indicators of
administrative violation of law in the actions of Schehegumen
Sergius because
of his preaching on the internal where he cursed those who close
churches
during the pandemic. This is the way law enforcers responded to
the inquiry of
one citizen. The case of Sergius was submitted to the local
prosecutor's
office. The schehegumen awaits a church trial also, and before
this the diocese
has consequently deprived him of the right to preach and to
minister. Sergius
is no less zealous than Peter, a fighter for the most
conservative values. He
also served as the spiritual director of the convent community
he founded,
fought against the INN, and to top it off in accordance with the
trends of the
times also against the "chipping" in the guise of vaccination
against
the coronavirus. (tr. by PDS, posted 8 June 2020)
Background articles:
Discord
in Orthodox church over lockdown restrictions
April 27, 2020
Controversy
in Russia over church of the military
April 24, 2020
Russian
church in Moldova clashes with civil government over pandemic
May 21, 2020
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